Oh Fuck No

Oh no she didn't!The writer of this article thinks it's a cute idea to encourage parents to allow their kids to run rampant in stores.Going even further, she suggests intentionally going to a store for the sole purpose of having their kids raise hell and trash the store.My heart weeps for the retail slaves who have to bear the brunt of this lady's advice.

The 5 BEST STORES FOR A PLAYDATE

Sephora: If you’re feeling frumpy, this is a great place to meet up with other moms for a playdate. Buy your kid a cookie, put him in the stroller and head over to Sephora in the late afternoon. Make sure you get there before 5pm; you don’t want to compete with women who are picking up products on their way home from work. You’ll get to glam it up for free and paint your face with high end cosmetics that you can no longer afford now that you’re on a budget. You will also be able to style your hair with fancy products and try out pricey perfumes. Take the perfume spritzing papers for your kids and come up with a counting game. They can play with those while you’re tramping yourself out. Plan a hot date that night after your kid goes to bed.

Macy’s: Grab a coffee and head to Macy’s. Hit the furniture department first. The kids will enjoy trying out different couches and chairs. Find an area that’s pretty closed in so they can’t get away from you. You can sit with the other parent and chat a bit while the kids play. They’ll enjoy pretending they have 50 different living rooms. When they get bored ride the elevator up and down a few times. Next stop should be the luggage department. Kids like trying to pull bags around that are bigger than they are. Finish the playdate up with a pillow fight in the bedding department.

Petland Discounts: A good alternative to the zoo or aquarium. Zoos and aquariums are expensive, crowded and usually not as close as a pet shop. Your child will enjoy looking at cats, rodents and fish. For free!There are toys too and they’re much cheaper than the ones you’ll find at the zoo. Beware of squeaky toys though, they can become annoying. Also remember that explaining why bones are for sale to a child could get tricky. They will be confused and not sure why animals are chewing on bones. They may ask you what type of bone it is and where it came from. Good luck with that conversation.

Barnes and Noble: It’s full of new books and toys that the kids can actually play with. There is a Starbucks for you and your fellow mom and milk boxes are for sale for the kids. The bathrooms are large and clean. There aren’t any librarians to yell at your children for running and not whispering. Your kids can get a good game of hide and seek going in the children’s section.

Costco: If you’re feeling lazy and too tired to pack lunch for the kids, head over to Costco around 11:45am and fill up on free samples. You can make a meal out of it and get to have dessert too. The kids will enjoy being in a giant warehouse. Make a game out of looking up and counting the number of items stacked way up high. Also, they’ll get a kick out of the giant boxes of cereal. Make up a game that Costco is where giants live. You won’t be too far off. They can also play house in the sheds that are usually for sale. If they get bored, take them into the super cold produce section. That’ll wake them up.

Dear God, what *is* this lady thinking!? I hearby sentence her to one year retail employment with daily visits by a schoolbus full of truant children that have just been fed an entire bag of cotton candy and a venti caramel macchiato.

T-Rex, do you mean it was written by the Onion, or that they copied it from somewhere else and were making fun of it? Because if this is for real, this woman needs to be slapped. As both a current retail worker and a former preschool teacher, I have a problem with this >.<

I almost shit my pants when I saw that B&N was on there. As an employee of the Big Green Monster all I can say is we do NOT need more encouragement for parents allowing their children to treat our kids and toy department like a playground!!!

I took a look at the blog, and only a few of those "activities" are mentioned: pet store, barnes and noble, and sephora. Sounds like she really does encourage this behavior, however the sephora one was apparently a different mother's idea.

I hope this was satire, for several reasons. Beside the encouraging bad behavior from both parents and children it has some truly ridiculous statements. Like how the children will be soooo confused by the fact that pet stores sell bones. WTF???

Chica I can only imagine that would be an issue with parents who have sheltered their kids from the food chain. Of course those kids grow up to have pets and then freak out when Fido/Fifi or Fluffy/Tiger not only brings home the spoils of their hunt, but then decides to share it with their owner.

This lady should be forced to work in my store under the following conditions:

-No coffee or caffeine.
-Only one register is open.
-All the customers are REQUIRED to take their time and are secretly being bribed to be annoying.
-No showing any signs of frustration allowed.
-No contradicting or disagreeing with a customer allowed.
(Among other things, just naming a few)

If this was posted by the Onion, it sounds like complete satire. I wouldn't take this article too seriously. Also, I've worked at a Macy's and we had no home department in our tiny store so no furniture. Good luck with trying to have the hellspawn jump on something like off the escalator of the top floor.

Oh come on everyone! I can't stand parents who do all these things. We've all seen it, it's a frickin' nightmare! I've seen it...while working retail! Thanks for your thoughts & for trashing me. Awesome!

AmigaTech, I feel like you don't understand what a playdate is..? Either that or your comment is just going over my head because I haven't had my coffee yet. A playdate is not in any way, shape or form, romantic. It's a previously arranged meeting, at ones home or a park, in which children (usually those too young to get socialization at school) can get to play with another child and mom (who has probably felt like a hermit for a couple years) gets a chance to chat with someone who likely won't throw a tantrum or spit up all over her. They're a great idea, but making them some stores problem is not.

I don't think it really matters whether this is satire or not... SOME waste of genetic material is going to happen across this article and think, "BRILLIANT!!! Off to Costco, kids!"

I've had people bring kids to wine tastings before... blows my freakin' mind why you'd think that was an acceptable place to bring a child. One memorable tasting, the mother freaked out because we wouldn't let her toddler carry around a $60 crystal wine glass full of apple juice, so she could be Just Like Mommy.
Another time, kiddo made off with a chunk of parmesan cheese the size of a softball... and ate it down to the rind before his mother bothered looking for him.
I like to think that diaper was it's own punishment, for not watching your kids closely enough.

Nothing in the article suggests that it's satire, and there are enough lazy parents who would take it seriously. When it comes to making somebody else's job more difficult, there is no such thing as a joke or a satire.

Blimey guys, you really get worked up easily huh? There will always be a joke you don't agree with. Also, I don't care that 'someone might read it and follow it'. Why should writers or comedians be responsible for other people's stupid behaviour? You'll get idiots anyway, so maybe relax a bit? Yeah, retail sucks, you won't change that by attacking random article writers over the internet. If you look at the context (so the rest of the blog), you kinda get the satire of it.

The last two sentences on the Sephora section show me that it's obviously not meant to be taken seriously: "They can play with those while you’re tramping yourself out. Plan a hot date that night after your kid goes to bed."